


More Fierce Than Fire

by forochel



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Family, Gen, House of Durin, Pre-Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little pre-Quest ficlet inspired by <a href="http://piiib.tumblr.com/post/38546865576/hey-uncle-play-with-us-xd">this</a> bit of fanart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Fierce Than Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been labelled under both book and movie canons, but the events referenced within are taken wholely from section III of Appendix A regarding Durin's Folk, and so hews closely to the book. It is tagged with the movie because the fanart this ficlet is inspired by is based on the character designs of the movie, and also my characterisation of the younger Thorin here is based on the less, for the lack of a better word, douchey version of Thorin in the movie. For he is indeed an exceedingly haughty dwarf in the book.

"Give us a ride, Thorin!"

" — yeah, Thorin, give us a ride!"

Thorin had wandered with remains of his people across the breadth and length of Middle-Earth (as he knew it, of course, for Middle-Earth was more vast than any imagining) for many a long and weary year; he had fought, been wounded alongside his father, lost his father's father, and gained the name 'Oakenshield' at the Battle of Azanulbizar; he had then lost Thrain and become the Heir of Durin at ninety-five — an heir without hope, and had laboured long to build a home in exile for his folk. 

And yet, when he considered the young dwarfling balanced on his shoulder and the other tugging on his cloak, it took all the tenacity and sobriety of Thorin's years to not fling them off him as so many flies, for Dís would surely look upon him with such disappointment. Her sons were dear to her heart; they were markers of hope and the future to her, for his sister was of a brighter disposition than him.

Thorin clenched his fist; he was glad for his sister's joy, and gladder still that she had found this new home well enough to bear Kíli and Fíli. But the long-ago memory of Erebor burning and their uncountable dead before the gates of Khazad-Dûm were like embers in his mind. He would not, Thorin thought, and could not bear it if his sister-sons and their piping voices, children of the Blue Mountains, descended of the Line of Durin, had ever to be crushed under such weight as was on his shoulders. Or, Aulë forbidding, if ever they had to face the great worm. 

"Oi! Thorin!" Fíli gave a hard tug on the hem of his cloak, drawing Thorin out of his thoughts.

"Forgive me, Fíli," said Thorin, gentler than his wont.

The children hushed, for they were more used to gruffness and being caught up round the collar by Thorin and being shaken like pups. 

Kíli's fingers tightened where they curled into the fur on Thorin's collar; he felt a burst of pride in his chest at the strength already in them.

"Are you all right, Thorin?" Kíli asked, sweetly concerned. 

"Yes, yes," answered Thorin, and stooped to sweep Fíli up into his arms. "Now, what is this game you would have me play?"

His passing strangeness forgotten, Fíli and Kíli howled happily as Thorin laid aside his burdens for a moment to play their noble steed.

"Mercy! Mercy!" Thorin cried at last, and tumbled them all down to the floor: hard stone covered with furs traded from far away.

Fíli and Kíli laughed merrily as they rolled off his back, where Fíli had joined Kíli, clambering over Thorin's other shoulder as Thorin had held carefully still and winced at Fíli's fingers pulling at his hair for balance. There they sat, panting and laughing all in one heap, next to the hearth where a warm fire burned. They had not delved too deep into this mountain, not for their dwelling spaces, following very carefully only the veins of iron and other ores such as they could find; Durin's Bane still cast a shadow over Thorin Thrain's son, and the counsel of his cousin Dain Ironfoot, who had returned from slaying Azog at the stoop of Khazad-Dûm ashen-faced with the doom he had beheld, were enough for Thorin to stay the overweening curiosity of dwarves in the deep.

Caution, thus, meant that they lived close to the surface, and winter, cold even in the southerly reaches of the Blue Mountains, meant that fires outside of the smithies had to be lit. 

"Was it like this, Thorin?" Kíli asked suddenly. He reached out to the fire, and Fíli slapped his hands away before he could burn himself on the poker. "Ow! Fíli hit me, Thorin!"

"Only so that you would not have been burnt, Kíli," Thorin said repressively. "It was well done, Fíli."

"Hah," Fíli said to Kíli, and stuck his tongue out. 

They were so young it ached, sometimes. Thorin kept watch as Kíli hurled himself atop Fíli and once again they went tussling across the floor, yelling war cries they had learnt from who-knows-where. Dwalin, on his occasional visits to Balin, perhaps. He wondered where Dís was, and why she had not come to retrieve her sons yet. All too likely she had been distracted by her craft, for she had quite infamously not left her smithy till it had almost been too late to birth Fíli. She had been more careful with Kíli. 

Stirring from where he lay, Thorin sat up and reached out to snatch Kíli back from the edge of the fire just in time. Fíli barrelled into his brother at great speed, sending them both sprawling into Thorin's lap. 

"Well," Thorin said, as they turned over with one leg apiece to rest their heads on. "You wished to know something?"

"Oh, well," said Kíli, suddenly shy.

"This shyness does not become you, Kíli." Thorin raised his eyebrows. 

"Mother said not to," Fíli hissed to Kíli.

Well, that was more interesting. "Come now, I will be the judge of what you may or may not ask me." 

"Was the fire like this?" Kíli burst out, kicking at the hearth with his booted foot. "In ... in Erebor?"

"Ah," Thorin said, breath suddenly escaping him. He cast his mind back and flinched at the memory of the heat that came with just the dragon's breath, as if a great furnace roiled in its belly. "No, lad, it was not."

"See, I told you," Fíli said, and tugged on Kíli's hair. 

"But your mother is right; that is not a story for today," Thorin said, and displacing them gently from his legs rolled to his feet. "It is long past time that she joined us for tea. Shall we go questing for her?"

The children looked so comically relieved that he had not done — whatever it was that Dís had intimated to them that he would if asked about the sacking of Erebor, and he would have words with her — that Thorin had to bite his tongue not to laugh. 

"Well?" he asked, holding a hand out.

Kíli looked at Fíli, who looked up at Thorin with a piercing look. Thorin raised his eyebrows. Fíli then took Kíli's hand, pulling him up to Thorin and tucking his hand into Thorin's, before going round to Thorin's other side and taking his other hand. 

"Let's go!" Kíli cheered, and merrily they went.

**Author's Note:**

> I have used a phrase of Tolkien's here, from:
>
>> "So Thorin Oakenshield became the Heir of Durin, but an heir without hope. When Thrain was lost he was ninety-five, a great dwarf of proud bearing; but he seemed content to remain in Eriador. There he laboured long, and trafficked, and gained such wealth as he could; and his people increased by many of the wandering Folk of Durin who heard of his dwelling in the west and came to him. "
> 
> \-- Tolkien, J.R.R., 1995, The Lord of the Rings (one volume edition), Appendix A, London: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1051
> 
> Merrin also kindly suggested the title.


End file.
